A day after Brahmin BSP MLA rom Chillupar (Gorakhpur) Vinay Shanker Tiwary, his brother and former BSP MP Kushal Shanker Tiwary and former BSP MP from Sant Kabir Nagar and sitting BJP MLA from Khalilabad Digvijay Narayan Chaubey alias Jai Chaubey defected to Samajwadi Party on Sunday, another Brahmin leader from BSP and former MP from Ambedkarnagar Rakesh Pandey is likely to switch sides and shift allegiance to Samajwadi Party.
His son and sitting BSP MP from Ambedkarnagar Ritesh Pandey is also likely to follow suit. Samajwadi Party sources said that Rakesh Pandey met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Monday. In the 2017 election, the BJP registered a significant victory in Purvanchal by winning 106 of the 156 Assembly seats from this region across 26 districts.
Pandey is not the first BSP leader who is expected to switch over to SP as a string of BSP leaders have been switching over to SP ahead of crucial 2022 UP Assembly polls. Other BSP leaders who recently joined SP include Ghatampur MLA RP Kushwaha, former BSP minister KK Gautam, former state BSP chief RS Kushwaha. Earlier two senior BSP leaders and sitting MLAs, Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar, who were expelled from the BSP, also joined the SP.
Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, which were once considered archrivals, came together for 2019 Lok Sabha polls amidst high-level campaigns that the alliance was unbeatable. However, the alliance failed to work with the BSP winning 10 Lok Sabha seats and SP winning five only while another poll partner Rashtriya Lok Dal drew a blank.